AOL’s past as a dialup company is being pushed to the background yet again, on purpose for sure. This time, the company is launching a separate business unit for its publishing products, called MediaGlow. This is where the 75 properties, many Weblogs Inc. blogs, end up, all according to a New York Times story.

“Instead of having a handful of front doors, we’re creating dozens if not hundreds of front doors that are more relevant to advertisers,” said Bill Wilson, the AOL publishing executive who will be the president of MediaGlow.

Another 30 sites will be launched this year, moving the portfolio for MediaGlow past 100 sites unless they decide to close or sell off any of the brands currently there. Maybe this is necessary, because although AOL can pride itself with an increase in pageviews at 40%, the New York Times article cites JP Morgon who estimates a 18% advertising decline in 2008. Nevertheless, this is yet another great example on how blogs provide a cost-efficient opportunity for publishing companies that want to get going online with minimal hassle.

On Monday, popular online radio network BlogTalkRadio announced a set of several new user interface features that encourage social networking and show participation.

The network has a What’s New page explaining the recent changes in detail.

Mashable says that “the focus is clearly to get visitors listening to more shows.” I agree. Without listeners, BTR dies on the vine.

A secondary pair of focal points to the changes at BlogTalkRadio appears to be to get BTR show hosts to talk to each more and to get more people to discover BTR via social networking websites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. read more

Ada Lovelace

24th March 2009 is Ada Lovelace Day, and Suw Charman-Anderson has called for at least one thousand people to pledge to blog about a woman in technology that they admire.

“I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.”

Suw writes on her blog:

I’ve mainly stayed away from the discussion of gender issues in technology. I didn’t think that I had any real expertise to share. But over the last six months, after many conversations, it has become clear that many of my female friends in tech really do feel disempowered. They feel invisible, lacking in confidence, and unsure how to compete for attention with the men around them…

If women need female role models, let’s come together to highlight the women in technology that we look up to. Let’s create new role models and make sure that whenever the question “Who are the leading women in tech?” is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.

read more

Someone remarked yesterday about the amount of times I reveal things in my writing and tweets that are, well, less than aggrandizing. Actually, her exact words were “have you no shame? lol”.

Shame? Hmm, while I don’t post pictures of myself drunk, or in my boxers, I do write things that others might think are self-depreciating. Things like mistakes I make, failings, bad habits, and the fact I am jealous that my brother is tall, slim and an excellent guitar player, while I am short, chubby, and can play one chord. Badly.

I think the way we communicate online gets to the heart of what we believe the medium is meant to be … read more

Just a quick follow-up to my editorial yesterday regarding advertisers and clients that don’t pay their bills. I used ProToolerBlog’s dispute with BBE Sound as an example, and it proved a good one. The issue’s been resolved, read more about that here. This further proves my point, and question in the title for that matter: How dare they? Neglect to pay that is, a lot of bad press there…

Remember Kevin Rose’s cold, you know, the one with the Twitter account? It managed to attract 801 followers, and did just 7 updates. Astonishing. That’s why I’m the least surprised to read that Kevin now has a Twitter account to publish tea drinking links. Already 336 followers, and that after just 1 tweet published 13 minutes ago, a mere 27 minutes after Kevin twittered its existence. Crazy, isn’t it?

$50 a year to document your kids every millimeter of progress? If you want to join the already flooded niche of mommy and daddy bloggers, Web hosting company McKremie.com wants to introduce you to Kizzog.

Kizzogs are a “semi-custom personal blog” targeted to parents who want to blog but don’t have the time or technical knowledge to do so.

The portmanteau, which stumped me at first, is a combination of “kids” and “blog.”

Headers and sidebars within the password-protected site you ‘build’ are customized by uploading images of your children.

“A Kizzog will help capture the memories that will soon fade. Whether it’s capturing your son’s first steps or your daughter’s first soccer game the Kizzog helps you do this via your child’s own personal website. Kizzogs are the best way to share these memories with your family and friends.”

The all-inclusive service includes a domain name, 24/7 Web hosting with 24/7 tech support, 12 design options and password protection.

My question is this: If you’re just having a kid now, aren’t you likely young enough to grasp the basic concept of starting up a free blog?

What do you guys think?

Most blogs rely on ads to make money, in one way or another. If you really want to rake in, direct sales is usually the key, but most are settling for Adsense or similar ad networks. There is no doubt that you need to find a way that works for you, but chances are, direct sales is your best bet, if you can manage them.

That brings another problem: The advertiser neglects to pay.

You would think that today, with blogs and everything related to you online is a potential reference someone will read in the future, that advertisers and clients would be cautious not to risk the bad press. You really would think that, but sometimes you get amazed, and a little bit depressed. read more

Artiklz is a new search engine designed specifically to index the information, opinion and comments contained in blogs, social media and bookmarking sites.

Launched on Wednesday as a public beta, the service describes itself as a “conversational search engine”, and works by “aggregating discussions around the social media, answering the question of who, where, why, when, and what people are discussing across the social media.”

The concept appears to be to aggregate comments from various popular services and the multitude of blogs so that users can either search for what people are talking about on a particular subject, or find every comment from a particular author. read more

WordPress 2.7 downloads now passing 970,000. Want to predict when it will hit one million? Matt Mullenweg asks for input on his New Year’s resolutions. Tips for optimizing WordPress Plugins to accommodate new AJAX abilities in WordPress 2.7. Two new versions of bbPress released. WordCamp Las Vegas is this weekend. WordCamp Indonesia coming up fast, along with WordCamp Whistler in Canada. And Ed Morita wants to know where to put his new permanent WordPress logo tattoo and wants your input.

WordPress News

WordPress Tattoo: Ed Morita wants a permanent tattoo. His WordPress blog has changed his life and he wants to honor the expertise with a WordPress tattoo. In “Where Should I Put My WordPress Tattoo?” he asks for input on where to put his new WordPress logo tattoo on his body. The deadline is January 30, and he will get the tattoo on his birthday, February 10th.

Matt Mullenweg’s New Year’s Resolutions: In an interesting open source style twist to making New Year’s resolutions, Matt Mullenweg offers “Open Sourcing Resolutions,” asking people to tell him what his resolutions should be for the new year. It’s an interesting list of what other people think he should be doing, as well as ideas for the WordPress Community and WordPress development. Want your say?

WordPress Unique Sites: planetOzh showcased some interesting sites using WordPress. They are Twitdom, Wingee and Free Shipping. If you know of any interesting sites using WordPress, let us know.

WordPress Men Called to Marathon for Breast Cancer: Brian Gardner is calling on Chicago/Midwest WordPress male fans to join him August 7-9, 2009, for the 60-mile marathon for the Chicago Breast Cancer event. He claims it will be a great journey talking WordPress and blogging non-stop. read more